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On Labor Day Monday, Hermine is still meandering off the East Coast, with the greatest threat one of strong winds and currents more than rain, according to NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez. (Published Monday, Sept. 5, 2016)

Hermine twisted hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, creating large waves in some southern New England beach waters that lured in surfers despite the rough surf and rip currents that kept most beachgoers away on the last day of the holiday weekend.

"These are more seasoned surfers who live for the thrill of these waves," said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Even as Hermine weakens, wind gusts of 30 to 50 mph were expected across southern Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts on Monday, Buttrick said.

Governors along the Eastern Seaboard announced emergency preparations. A tropical storm warning was in effect from New York's Long Island to Massachusetts. New York officials extended beach closures beyond Labor Day because of continued deadly rip currents.

Whipping winds didn't keep some beach seekers from walking along the New Jersey shore on Monday, but Labor Day vacationers quickly took to boardwalks as an aggressive high tide moved into the area late morning.

The waves eroded some of the shore, creating sand dune cliffs where kids climbed. Warnings of potentially dangerous riptides temporarily cleared the water Monday morning, but a couple of dozen beachgoers and a handful of surfers returned to the water in Atlantic City by the afternoon. A rougher surf cleared portions of the beachfront.

"We are already experiencing more and more flooding due to climate change in every storm," said Michael Oppenheimer, a geosciences professor at Princeton University. "And it's only the beginning."

Michael Mann, at Pennsylvania State University, said the 1-foot rise that New York City has experienced over the past century caused an additional 25 square miles and several billions of dollars of damage with Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Driver Killed After Strong Winds Overturn Truck

A man died early Saturday after a tractor trailer overturned because of high winds from Tropical Storm Hermine on the Lindsay C. Warren Bridge east of Columbia, North Carolina. The drawbridge on U.S. Highway 64 over the Alligator River connects Tyrrell and Dare counties. (Courtesy WAVY's Joe Fisher) (Published Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016)

No flooding or other damage had been reported as of Monday afternoon in some of the worst Sandy-hit areas, including Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking and Brick.

On Saturday, high winds tipped over an 18-wheeler, killing its driver and shutting down a bridge in North Carolina's Outer Banks. In Florida, a homeless man in Marion County was hit by a falling tree and was killed. And a man trying to remove a tree that fell on a highway near Cottageville, South Carolina, on Friday was struck by a car and died on Saturday.